The Apostasywatch.com points out how many famous televangelists and powerful figures in the American Christian world have compromised with the world in a very serious fashion. The site is written by someone who DOES believe that the gospel should be confirmed by signs and wonders, which I also believe. Someone who takes the Scripture seriously and deserves to be read.
The Lighthouse Trails project exposes the links that many popular church growth teachers such as Rick Warren have to the mystical contemplative spiritualities and New Age practices and philosophies that are coming to corrupt those people who have sought another way to spiritual power and intimacy aside from the one ordained by God in the Scriptures.
I may not agree with EVERYTHING in the lighthouse trails site but I do believe they are onto something very important. They do take serious pains to document their claims, something which I don’t have the time or expertise currently to do in the same way right now.
We are seeing a growing acceptance of anything which can draw people into church, regardless of whether the Holy Spirit is leading or not. This is idolatrous, but it looks really good to carnal Laodiceans who are happy when their bank accounts are full, they have political and social power, and all men (or at least many) speak well of them.
I have to say that I also have serious reservations about any ministry that cannot point to the existence of God’s supernatural work in and through their own lives. A person who lacks a supernatural encounter with God tends to blast everything supernatural – the problem is that God Himself is a supernatural God. The Bible is full of the supernatural. Purists and Christian philosophers might object to the use of the word “supernatural” but I hope they know what I mean when I use that word – I mean the intervention of spiritual beings in the affairs of men. There is a supernatural of satan and a supernatural of God. We need discernment to know the different. We should know the genuine in order to be best qualified to know the counterfeit.
Sadly a lot of church leaders don’t care where the power comes from – as long as it helps them to build a big church they will endorse it. This is where apostasy comes in.